O HOLY NIGHT: FOREIGN PROTESTANTS PACK CHURCHES AT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SHANGHAI 000580


DEPT FOR EAP/CM, AND DRL/IRF
NSC FOR LOI, KUCHTA-HELBLING

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/30/2033
TAGS: PGOV PINR KIRF SOCI CH
SUBJECT: O HOLY NIGHT: FOREIGN PROTESTANTS PACK CHURCHES AT
CHRISTMAS

REF: A. (A) SHANGHAI 360

B. (B) SHANGHAI 408

CLASSIFIED BY: MATTHEW MURRAY, ACTING POL/ECON CHIEF, US
CONSULATE SHANGHAI, DEPARTMENT OF STATE.
REASON: 1.4 (b),(d)


Summary
--------------


1. (C) Foreign Protestants packed church services for Christmas
celebrations in Shanghai, taking advantage of recent indications
that the Municipal Government is willing to provide more
opportunities for expatriate Protestants to meet corporately in
the city. With the growing number of foreigners in Shanghai, it
is natural to see more foreign Christians, our contacts said,
but authorities continue to view foreign Protestants with
greater suspicion than Catholics or non-Christian religions, and
foreign Protestants' efforts to interact with local Christians
remain restricted. End Summary.


--------------
O Come All Ye Faithful:

Protestants Celebrate Christmas in Shanghai
--------------


2. (C) Shanghai has two primary church congregations for foreign
Protestants -- one located on Hengshan Road in the French
Concession area (in western Shanghai) and the other in Pudong's
Jinqiao District (on the eastern side of the Huangpu River) --
both of which were packed to overflowing for services on
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Poloff attended the Abundant
Grace International Fellowship (AGIF) Christmas Eve service in
Pudong, which was held at a hotel and was standing room only.
An American businessman who has lived in Shanghai for three
years told Poloff that Christmas Day services at the Hengshan
Road church also were standing room only. (Note: There are
other churches in Shanghai for foreign Protestants, most notably
for Korean and Russian congregations as well as for overseas
Chinese, including those from Taiwan and Hong Kong, but Hengshan
and AGIF are the two primary international congregations in the
city. End Note.)


3. (C) Shanghai, like other cities in China, does not allow
Chinese citizens to worship together with foreign Protestant
congregations, and foreigners are largely discouraged from
attending Chinese services. AGIF and the church at Hengshan
both share their church buildings with Chinese Three-Self
Patriotic Movement (TSPM) congregations, which results in the
foreign congregations regularly meeting on Sunday afternoons
while Chinese Christians attend the TSPM services in the
morning. The need to share space led to inconveniences during
Christmas; for example, the Hengshan foreign congregation did
not have much time to set up for its service, and the AGIF
congregation elected to move its service to a nearby hotel.
These minor problems, however, did not appear to deter those
foreign Protestants who remained in Shanghai for Christmas from
attending services in large numbers.


--------------
Joy to the World:

New Opportunities for Foreign Protestants
--------------


4. (C) Foreign Protestants living in western Shanghai (Puxi)
were encouraged just prior to Christmas by the opening of a new
expatriate congregation near Hongqiao Airport. Poloff attended
the 300-plus member gathering, called Shanghai Christian
Fellowship (SCF) Hongqiao, on the morning of December 28, where
there also was a standing room only crowd in a leased hotel
multifunction room. With a pastor from Singapore, Daniel Ho,
and a wide range of nationalities represented, SCF, which was
permitted by the Municipal Government to meet for the first time
on December 14, may be the most culturally diverse of Shanghai's
foreign Protestant congregations. Growing demand for a new
foreign Protestant congregation had been steadily growing, and
the Hengshan church, where many of the SCF attendees previously
worshipped, increased from two Sunday services to three during
the fall in order to accommodate the growing number of active
churchgoers in the expatriate community.


5. (C) At the same time, foreign residents in Pudong are pleased
that Bible Study Fellowship (BSF),a U.S.-based organization,
which in addition to providing materials used for religious
instruction in official churches in China, also operates men's
and women's Bible Studies for foreign Christians, will be
allowed to open a new Bible Study course in Pudong next year.
BSF has been holding men's and women's Bible Studies for
foreigners for the past couple of years but has been restricted
by local authorities to operating only in Puxi. Foreign
participants in the Bible Study, many of whom live in Pudong,
believe the BSF program for foreigners will expand exponentially
in Shanghai when opened to Pudong's large expatriate population.


--------------
Hark, the Herald Angels Sing:

Foreign Christians Growing in Numbers
--------------


6. (C) With more and more foreigners moving to Shanghai during
the 1990s, it is natural to see a growing number of foreign
Christians in Shanghai, Consulate contacts said. As a "City of
Immigrants," Shanghai is more accepting to outsiders, said Lu
Hanlong, Director of the Sociology Department at the Shanghai
Academy of Social Sciences (SASS),pointing to the thousands of
foreign white collar workers who move to Shanghai to work in the
financial sector or for foreign-invested enterprises. SASS
Institute of Religious Studies Director Yan Kejia told Poloff on
November 17 that he estimates there are approximately 160,000
foreigners in Shanghai who are "religious believers," including
Protestants.


7. (C) According to Yan, it is difficult to accurately gauge how
many foreign Christians live in Shanghai, however, because (1)
there is regular turnover of foreigners in Shanghai every year,
(2) foreigners' lives are busy so while they may believe in a
religion, they might not go to church, and (3) it is difficult
to calculate the number of believers who are short-term (less
than 6 months) residents of Shanghai. Yan added that one
example of the difficulty faced when predicting the number of
foreign Christians in Shanghai is that there are 50,000
long-term Korean residents in the city, and 30 percent of
Korea's population is Christian. The number of Korean
Christians in Shanghai may be higher than 15,000 (30 percent),
however, because Korean white collar workers are more likely to
be Christian than their blue collar counterparts, and many of
the Koreans who are drawn to Shanghai are white collar workers.


-------------- -
What Child Is This?

Authorities Still Watching Foreign Protestants
-------------- -


8. (C) Despite the recent apparent opening, the Shanghai
Municipal Government continues to pay particularly close
attention to foreign Protestants. Yan Kejia contends that many
of the obstacles encountered by foreign Protestant groups in
Shanghai when they want to establish new congregations stem from
more benign reasons and legitimate concerns than many foreigners
understand. Yan pointed out that there are not enough pastors
who speak foreign languages, foreigners' expectations for their
churches are high, and the church registration process, which
includes the problem of acquiring land for churches or finding
other church buildings to share, always will be cumbersome
whether in China or elsewhere. It is therefore a positive sign
that the Municipal Government has been able to meet the
religious needs of many foreign Protestants, Yan stated,
including not only at the Hengshan Church, and AGIF, which was
established three years ago, but also in the Korean and Russian
communities in particular.


9. (C) Yan acknowledged, however, that local authorities watch
foreign Protestant congregations much more closely than other
religious groups. Yan stated that Catholic churches, Buddhist
temples, and Muslim mosques all allow foreigners and Chinese
citizens to mix freely in Shanghai. (Note: Congenoffs have
found Chinese Catholic churches welcome their attendance. End
Note.) Protestantism is "more of a participation activity,"
however, which worries local officials, Yan said. "Catholics
just pray, take communion, and go home," Yan stated. "But
Protestants always want to get organized." The local government
remains concerned about keeping foreign Protestants separate
from their Chinese counterparts, said Li Feng, a professor at
East China Normal University, because the Government feels
threatened by Protestants as an organization. Religion for
individuals is relatively free in Shanghai, Li told Poloff on
November 19, but the Municipal Government wants to prevent the
growing number of foreign Protestants in the city from
"organizing" local Chinese Christians.


--------------
Go Tell It On the Mountain...

But Not if Chinese Live There
--------------


10. (C) Not surprisingly, therefore, foreign Protestants in
Shanghai regularly report that while the activities of their own
foreign congregations do not appear to be curtailed -- and in
fact are enjoying growing freedom as evidenced by Christmas
celebrations in 2008 -- their opportunities to share their
faiths with local Chinese and interact with Chinese religious
organizations are somewhat restricted (see also Ref A on East
China's Chinese Protestant community). Nate Showalter, AGIF's
pastor, told Poloff that AGIF has grown rapidly in its three
years of existence and has enjoyed a fairly cooperative
relationship with local officials. It is difficult, however,
for church members to interact with local Chinese Christians,
Showalter said, and as a result, AGIF's Missions Committee
expends many of its resources to support community development
activities in India rather than locally in Shanghai.


11. (C) Diana Mark, a Singaporean national, said she was able to
work with a local house church for several months, enjoying some
anonymity as an Asian and Chinese speaker. House church members
told her in December, though, that she should not continue
working with them because local officials had learned a
foreigner was involved with their group (see also Ref B on house
church difficulties). Matthew Hilliard, an American missionary,
told Poloff on December 26 that he is encouraged that he and his
wife are allowed to attend a local Chinese church, Grace Church,
in Jingan District. He is disappointed, however, that he cannot
be "as active as we would like" in the church's activities, lest
his higher profile as a foreign Protestant cause additional
problems for the church.


CAMP